Rueful Heart
by adaora
Summary: She finds herself holding onto the boy she would have pushed away those years ago. Her memories fight with what she feels, but she can't help but shield herself in his arms from all the cold and enmity that's building. It's the only thing that's real to her.


It's cold in Atlas.

It's frigid and it's frozen and the air in their dormitories displaces so little it's unlikely to change. Hoping for more pleasant weather, something that doesn't call for winter-wear, is a lottery in itself. One that isn't worth the time.

It makes sense then that the logic of residing in Atlas, where the air is thinner and the wind is stronger, rather than Mantle, where the air is thick and the atmosphere is a great deal more grounded, is both contradictory and infuriating.

The heating here is state-of-the-art, the bedwear is luxury, the windows and doors are air-tight and the carpet is layered so many times over that you could rebuild the animal that it was carved from. But that doesn't stop an equally pale-natured and nival heiress from feeling what the outside holds for the bold. The bitter cloak of cold. The harrowing whispers of what would inevitably lead to hypothermia.

Reality would show her words to be exaggeration, of course, but to the girl wrapped in comfort it may as well be the truth. The contrast between heat and cold is too high for reasonable thought.

The boy next to her is warm, he's cozy and he's soft and the air between them moves so delicately that she fears moving even slightly would shatter the harmony.

It's a different type of logic. It's one she's unfamiliar with, one that doesn't muster to comparatives or values, but it's one that warms her even further beyond practical methods, and for once she's willing to jeopardise logic and understanding for just one guilty pleasure.

Their setup is rudimentary; they're crammed into a corner of a lower bunk with silk and fur constricting their bodies. She's pressed as close as she can get against him, she has her legs driven down the axis of his and her head rests in an open crook of his neck. The small, tired breaths she takes pool in the dip and then flow back against her, and sometimes it dries the roof of her mouth and she has to move her tongue about just to cope. But it's here that she can hear his pulse, where she can feel the sign that he's here with her reaffirm itself repeatedly. It's the only way she can be confident she's holding onto someone real, because it's the only logical way.

It's warm here - only just, but it's warm and it's better than figuring out a way to keep herself warm whilst awake. It's better than being alone, though she wonders how much it's worth if it's only like this because she can't sleep.

Sleep is hard sometimes, understandably so for a girl that was on the edge of having her name etched into mortality. It's not everyday that the opportunity to get a good look at what's impaled you arises; what's about to kill you and what's making your vision blink away.

Sleep is hard because it lingers, that blighted memory of what should have been death, it revisits her whenever it feels necessary. Now, her residence in Atlas - her residence in what was once her home before it all - only amplifies the poison of fear and it brings it forward even more than she can handle. That same burn she felt has woken her once, only once, but it was furious and it invaded her dreams like a creeping rot.

She panics sometimes, maybe when the day doesn't go quite right or maybe even if it hadn't started right. She wonders if she's any different, if she's lost herself to a less favourable form that grew from her near-death. Sometimes she wonders what the point of life is if it's so easy to lose, what the point is of living if she had already died a death.

She hadn't, certainly, but she was close enough for it to only be logical.

In the faintest of moments, like now, her thoughts drift to him and she wonders why he did what he did. Why he brought her back. What must have gone through his mind.

Though she doesn't talk about it, because she doesn't want something like that to have an answer. She wants it to be imponderable, she wants to dwell on it herself every now and then. She doesn't want him to tell her the truth.

The heiress has somewhat of an idea. She remembers Beacon, and she wonders if it's still the same. She remembers his antics and how much she nearly hated him. To her highest effort she tries to forget, and to an even higher effort she stops others from reminding her and stops anyone else from knowing.

It's embarrassing. Embarrassing to think he saw her someway else than she saw herself, and it's embarrassing to think she saw him in such a cruel light. She makes sure it's never brought up because she doesn't want him to consider how drastically it's all changed. She doesn't want him to think she's being insincere. She doesn't want him to lose trust in her.

Everything's different now. The way they speak to one another, the way they see each other, the way they hold each other. It's different because it would have been blasphemy two years ago, and she would have had you hung, drawn and quartered for suggesting such a thing.

The thought of her expired hate for him rises again and it makes her nauseous.

Maybe it was soon enough inevitable that they would find some slight of solace in each other. Perhaps they'd been through enough and endured enough time to finally need someone other than themselves.

She knew she certainly had, having dealt with a disastorous family dynamic twice over, once after an already traumatic disarray of escapadery and survival that had lasted for too long. As selfish as it was, she also couldn't help but hope he had as well; she liked to think she was here for a boy that was hurting just as equally. She wants their moments and stolen glances to be something mutual, something that's shared.

Despite all that was said and done those years ago, when things were different and when she didn't need someone to hold her like this, she hopes there's something there. Between them. She hopes he feels something too.

She hopes he feels something beyond all the cold.

Tonight could be different, if she could say what she knew she could have it another way. She could feel safer, more confident. He could know what she knew, and maybe he'd tell her it was going to be okay.

She misses her givens and absolutes, and her dealings in maybes and plausibilities just brings forward more nausea.

The uncertainty swirls into compulsion. Eyes close and she retreats further into his neck, but breaths grow more unsure as words broil in preparation to speak, and she takes to diving off of the deep end that she's used to.

"I'm falling in love with you." The words are etched shakily but they're certain and undoubtable, and they break through a breathed silence in near perfect cadence. "I'm sorry."

The apology isn't prepared for. It isn't decided. But she finds herself apologising for something that she doesn't understand. It almost scares her, how quickly she's lost track of herself, how quickly he changed from someone she couldn't stand to... to this.

Maybe the apology comes from not wanting to be a replacement. She doesn't wish to think about it, but her words are running risks for a boy who's been through the worst, and she's scared he'll see someone else in her.

The thoughts only last seconds, but the time that passes throughout grows a bitter cold and the warmth she feels begins to dissipate. She almost panics again, but something comes back and it's not her own thoughts.

"It's all right."

A softer voice sounds through the silence, and she can feel the calm reverberating of the words as they pass through his throat. They take a moment to settle in, for her to acknowledge what it means, but once they do her heart plunges to rest and the light grip she holds on his front tightens.

She doesn't get a reaffirmation. She doesn't yet know for sure how he feels about her, but by the way he curls back into her and wraps his arms about her waist to pull her in closer, she doesn't think she needs one. He holds her tenderly like she feels she deserves, and his lips brush against the dress of loose white locks that adorn her forehead as he brings her closer.

It's okay. She's falling for the boy she once nearly hated, and it's all right.

She supposes change can do that, given the slight talks of their sundered families per their aspirations for Beacon were frightfully easy, and the sentiment between them was too equal for their own good.

Her eyes remain comfortably shut, and she nuzzles herself further into him. It's empty in the dorm they reside in, her teammates are out for reasons that are their own and though it's only early into the night, she feels like she's spent a lifetime in the same arms.

They're still only teenagers, adolescents. They're still only young but they've been thrown through decades worth of adversary in a few years.

She wants to think she gets to be an adult now, that she's responsible and mature but her burning desire for such a thing only disproves it so. It's only now when she lies vulnerable, shielded from the cold by the warmth of someone who cares to hold her, only now when she truly feels thankful that she feels somewhat close to being an adult.

It's when it's all so imperfect, but there's someone there to soften it, that it's something that feels real. There's no dreaming and there's no fabrication, no reflections in a mirror.

Her situation may be flawed, it may be undesirable and it could be different had she chosen differently. But it's real, fathomable. It's no fairy tale, but that isn't to say she needed one in the first place. She doesn't need to look into a mirror to see what should be when void of emotion or circumstance. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Because at the very least, all the imperfection and strife, all the doubting and the anatagonism, has brought them together.

And it's brought her to have him with her in this very moment.

Maybe it isn't so cold.

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**Thanks for reading.**

**_adaora _**


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